Monthly Archives: November 2017

More than four billion people live without a household toilet. November 19 is designated as World Toilet Day by the UN to create awareness and inspire action around this global sanitation crisis.

Communities who grapple with the challenge of safe water and better sanitation often turn to our public health animation—The Story of Cholera—to help teach safe sanitation and hygiene practices. Originally developed to assist with education during the Haitian cholera epidemic in 2010, it is now used all over the world to help communities understand how cholera—and waterborne diseases in general—is spread and steps they can take to prevent it. We estimate the film has been watched well over 200 million times.

The Story of Cholera will soon be added to the permanent safe water exhibition at the Center for Disease Control (David J. Sencer CDC Museum) in Atlanta. It has won over 20 awards, including, most recently, winner of the 2017 CUGH-Pulitzer Video Competition for Innovations in Global Health. The Story of Cholera is available in more than 40 languages.

About 15 million babies are born preterm each year, and over 1 million die due to complications related to preterm birth. This makes premature birth the leading cause of mortality in children under five—yet many of these deaths can be prevented.

World Prematurity Day—November 17—focuses on raising awareness of this crisis. We are proud to be one of those voices, and to be part of a community of support for the health workers and parents caring for these vulnerable babies.

We know that simple interventions can make a vital difference in the care of small babies, even in places without access to modern facilities. We’ve created a comprehensive library of teaching videos on small baby care, covering topics such as how to keep infants warm with skin-to-skin care, feeding, infection prevention, and danger signs.

Five videos are designed specifically for mothers to demystify the needs of premature infants and help them care for their babies both in the hospital and at home. Since their release earlier this year, more than 10,000 copies of the small baby videos have been downloaded.

Our Small Baby Video Series was developed in partnership with the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to complement the Essential Care for Small Babies (ECSB) curriculum, which is based on the latest WHO guidelines.